Barcodes by The Ocean Band

"Wine Into Water" reminds me of the clubs we started out at; being the first original of ours which got any sort of peep out of our audiences (or lack thereof). The place had just banned us from covering Bad Co., from some well meaning elitist motive or other, and this was Uwe's snappy retort.

I wrote the most of the words to "Spike" drunk insensible at Sammy's old apartment. Somehow Neve and Sam turned it into a full song right on the spot, not that I'd remember. The next thing I know, it has all these cool arpeggiator and organ parts in it too.

"Big Time Lights" is a song I wrote years ago and performed with my previous band, who weren't particularly pleased to see it redone and appearing here.

"Gun Man" was never formally anything; it appeared mysteriously during a housekeeping of old demos, apparently an off the cuff living room jam, again at Sammy's. Nobody's sure why it's called that, and there was some slight disagreement about whether the song was about depraved sex or whether it was a call to arms for glorious social revolution.

And then, there is the whole slew of little inside tales of parties, friends, roadtrips, fight and (but, of course) stalker women and everything else that goes on around these parts.

There's also the mind numbing tedium, the endless waiting cigarettes and vending machine drinks, the cold, packed sandwiches and the sleep deprivation. It would be easy to soppily summarize it all as good fun. It was, for the most part, naturally, but it was also pure bloody minded slog in places and indecision and confused bickering in others. Making this was an object lesson in logistics. I'm happy I'm a part of this; I loved it all, and I'm also thoroughly relieved that it's been completed at last. There are things to move on to from here.

I like the album because it's the work of a bunch of hard-headed, stubborn but loving and involved folks who happen to have a modicum of talent as well.

Between the lot of us, we barely even listen to the same music half the time. Which reulted in such paradoxes as Sammy playing a blues song, Neve yelling punk, Uwe being all loaded with finesse on (and he thinks of these as dirty words) a pop ballad and me trying my hands at rudimentary funk guitar. David's the hardcore pro here, he somehow managed to nail all of this quite easily, the bastard.

Here it is. It's a freshman-to-sophomore record, and it's good to see that diversity of influences, of backgrounds, of pretty much every damn thing it's possible to differ on, can lead to a listenable, maybe even colourful, piece of work.

I'm not gonna bring up my serious technical opinions here. It's done, it's finished, and I think it sounds good. I'll leave the objectivity to you now."

--- Angshu

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